Duel of Fists (1971)

Duel of Fists (1971)
Aka: Striking Fist; Duel of Fist
Chinese Title: 拳擊
Translation: Pugilism

 

Starring: David Chiang Da-Wei, Ti Lung, Ching Li, Chan Sing, Ku Feng, Woo Wai, Pawana Chanajit, Wang Chung, Yang Chi-Ching, Ching Miao
Director: Chang Cheh
Action Directors: Tong Gaai, Lau Kar-Leung

 

In order to appreciate the influence that Bruce Lee had on the martial art film, one need only watch his first movie, The Big Boss, on a double bill with Duel of Fists. Both films came out in October of 1971 and share a Thai setting. Both films star the most talented martial artists of their respective studios: this one stars Ti Lung[1], while fledgling studio Golden Harvest hired newcomer[2] Bruce Lee. Those similarities aside, the quality of the action varies wildly between the two movies, with The Big Boss easily coming out on top. This is not to say that Duel of Fists is a bad movie: it certainly has its moments and benefits from higher production values than the Golden Harvest, most of which were directed toward David Chiang’s wardrobe. Seriously, this film has the tackiest, most colorful 1970s attire this side of Willie Dynamite.

David Chiang plays Fan Ke, a civil engineer whose dad (Ching Miao, of Sword of Swords) happens to run a kung fu school. Fan Ke also knows kung fu, although his current focus is on his regular career. When his father suffers a fatal heart attack, Fan Ke learns that his dad once had a dalliance with a local girl while promoting kung fu in Thailand decades before. The fruit of that relationship was child that nobody ever met. Fan Ke decides to head to Bangkok and look for his long-lost brother, armed only with a childhood photograph and a rumor that the young man is an up and coming Thai boxer.

We meet the brother before Fan Ke does: he is Wenlie (Ti Lung), an upstart kickboxer who has problems of his own: his mother is sick and he’s fighting to earn enough money for her operation. At the same time, he is being courted by a sleazy promoter, Xuqiu (former Cathay studios actor Woo Wai), who wants to manage him. Xuqiu works for an even sleazier crime boss named Chiang Ren (perennial villain Chen Sing), who isn’t above bribing muay thai referees into allowing his boxers to beat their opponents to death. Chiang Ren’s current superstar is Cannon (Ku Feng), who has already killed two of his opponents. The odds of Wenlie beating Cannon are such that if he does win, he’ll make more than enough to pay for the surgery. But you know how those sleazy promoters and their sleazier bosses are…

Fan Ke arrives in Thailand and starts snooping around the local muay thai arenas looking for his brother. The two actually meet early on, although neither realize who the other is. Fan Ke befriends a Thai girl (Pawana Chanjit of The King of Boxers) and it seems that the two will become an item. Fan Ke also arouses the suspicion of Xuqiu, who has his men follow him around Bangkok. It is only on the day of Wenlie’s match with Cannon that they learn the truth and join forces against Chiang Ren and his thugs.

While both this and The Big Boss were both filmed in Thailand, this movie had a bigger budget for travelogue footage and on-location shooting. The latter limited its scenes to the infamous run-down ice factory, a local gambling den, and the local brothel. This one was filmed during the local water festival, in which people splash complete strangers with water and everybody enjoys it. Characters eat at posh hotel restaurants, visit scenic temples, and go to numerous arenas to watch kickboxing matches. One would be tempted to visit Thailand more based on Duel of Fists than on The Big Boss.

One might also give Duel of Fists credit for having better female characters than its Golden Harvest counterpart. While neither films pass the Bechdel Test[3], Duel of Fists does have a strong Chinese female character (played frequent Ti Lung collaborator Ching Li[4]) and a strong Thai female character. In fact, Pawana Chanajit’s Meidai is arguably stronger than Ching Li’s Yudan, who spends much of the movie weeping. Compare this with The Big Boss, in which Maria Yi’s character is a little more than a flower vase, while all of the Thai females are prostitutes. The Big Boss plays more into the reputation that Thailand gained during the Vietnam War as a hub for sex tourism, not to mention the Golden Harvest philosophy that a pair of breasts or two in their kung fu movies would guarantee a few extra butts in the theater.

Although choreographers Lau Kar-Leung and Tong Gaai were the best in the business at the time, they were certainly no match for Bruce Lee choreographing himself. Instead, this is a film that positions the skinny and short (even by local standards) David Chiang as a nigh-unbeatable kung fu master. Duel of Fists asks us to believe that Chiang is not only a) a better fighter than co-star Ti Lung, but b) a better fighter than the “Headcrusher” Chen Sing, who is ten times more muscular than Chiang. While I can take a movie that suggests that traditional Chinese kung fu forms trump muay thai, a movie that suggests that David Chiang mimicking traditional Chinese forms is better than Ti Lung and Chen Sing is really stretching it a bit.

Most of the kung fu on display comes from a handful of group melees that break out every once in a while. Early on, Chiang tussles with his kung fu brothers at his father’s school and things are fine. Once Chiang starts fighting Chiang Ren’s men in the last twenty minutes in a pair of long fight scenes, then it starts to get unbelievable. Chiang’s moves lack any sort of power and his kicks often look like he’ll just topple over at any moment. And yet, the movie asks us to believe that he his fingers can piece human flesh and that he is so intimidating that he can scare off twenty men with short swords.

Ti Lung fares a little better in his fights. While Ti Lung’s initial training was in the wing chun style, he fakes muay thai fairly well here—as well as can be expected for the first Hong Kong film to showcase that style. He is given two lengthy fights in the ring, which are photographed, edited, and choreographed realistically. Too realistically, perhaps. It looks like we are watching an actual televised Thai boxing match instead of a movie fight. This has often been a problem for Hong Kong filmmakers, to take a matter-of-fact approach to onscreen Muay Thai. Even later films like Kickboxer’s Tears (1993) and Dreaming the Reality (1992) were guilty of that. Nonetheless, he does look more powerful in his fights than co-star David Chiang does.

Perennial movie heavies Ku Feng and Chen Sing are also convincing in their fights, especially the latter. Chen Sing had a background in both Southern Shaolin kung fu and Japanese karate. You can see the latter on display here in his jerky, linear movements and focus on ridge hand strikes. This would serve him well during the early 70s, when “basher” choreography was the style of the time. Once shapes, or forms-oriented fighting, became the vogue, he would mainly fight with the Tiger style in his movies, which we will discuss later on in this book. 

As it stands, Duel of Fists is an entertaining film, although far from the best of the people involved. It is certainly no Vengeance!, while its contemporary The Big Boss trumps it in both the fighting and exploitation departments, even if Duel of Fists is a better movie on the whole. Outside of Shaw Brothers enthusiasts, most people will find it facscinating as a time capsule in both 70s fashions and how fight choreography was before Bruce Lee came around.

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[1] - In an interview conducted around 2003, Ti Lung stated that he, Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee were considered the “three kings of kung fu” by a number of Hong Kong movie magazines. Considering that Jackie Chan did not become a star until 1978, I’m guessing this moniker came at the tail end of the 1970s.

[2] - Newcomer in the sense that it was his first Hong Kong martial arts film as an adult; Bruce had been a child actor in Hong Kong with more than twenty film credits before he moved to the United States.

[3] - Not that it matters.

[4] - Not to be confused with Li Ching, another Shaw Brothers starlet who showed up in films like Vengeance of a Snow Maiden; Sexy Girls of Denmark; and Sexy Playgirls.